The Other Side of Hogwarts
by ashanta
Summary: A Slytherin taking Muggle Studies? A Hufflepuff at the top of her class? A Ravenclaw failing a subject? A Gryffindor associating with someone not in their own house? Not everyone fits into their house stereotypes at Hogwarts... OCs


**Author**: Ashanta  
**Rating**: PG  
**Characters**: OCs...with occasional cameos later  
**Summary**: Not every Hogwarts student fits so neatly into their stereotypes.

_The Other Side of Hogwarts_

Ivan Rominov slammed his book bag down hard on the table, making the other three students around him jump in surprise. The Great Hall was littered with the occasional student who had been unfortunate enough to receive homework on the first day, and they sat amongst the four tables, pouring over their assignments and chatting with their neighbors in hushed tones.

"Rough day in class?" asked Lee Wong casually, a sixth year Gryffindor, and looked up from his Transfiguration homework. He should have known better than to hope Professor McGonagall would go easy on them on the first day back.

"Ask Linda…I don't want to talk about it." Ivan grumped, and pulled his bag closer to him and began taking out his Potions essay Snape had so thoughtfully assigned after that bushy-haired, Gryffindor know-it-all, Granger, had spoken out of turn yet again.

Janet Pritchard, a Ravenclaw also in sixth year, looked expectantly at Linda Culpepper, a Hufflepuff in the same year. "Muggle Studies?" she inquired.

Linda nodded as Ivan groaned, pretending to be interested in something in his Potions book. "Everyone kept asking him if he was in the wrong class," she said quietly, looking at Janet from over her black-rimmed glasses.

"I mean, why would a _Slytherin _take _Muggle_ Studies?" Ivan muttered sardonically, still staring at his book. "Merlin forbid that I'd might want learn something about the other side of my family."

"Thought you said you didn't want to talk about it," Lee grinned. "Besides, what do you need that class for? I come from Muggles—I can tell you everything you need to know, mate."

"That'll be the day," Janet said, smirking. "The three of us ask for academic advice from you?"

"At least I didn't fail Herbology," Lee said.

"I did not _fail_. I just…got low marks." Janet said evasively. Herbology had always gone less than swimmingly for her, the one class she could never quite get the hang of; all of the other subjects she excelled in—particularly Potions, despite her hatred of Snape—but Herbology was the bane of her existence. She was growing suspicious that anything she touched would indeed die in a matter of minutes.

"A Ravenclaw with low marks? Just about as unusual as a Slytherin taking Muggle Studies," Lee said. Moments later, a balled up scrap of parchment beaned him in the head. Ivan's lips twitched.

"Or a Gryffindor associating with someone besides his own house." Janet retorted. "Then again, I suppose that's true of all of us."

"Him more so," Linda said, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"—_Anyway_." Lee interrupted, judging the conversation was now swinging in a direction that would no longer be favorable to him, "Like I was saying, I get why Linda would take Muggle Studies, her being pureblood and all and not knowing a light switch from a torch—"

"I know what a torch is!"

"—But Ivan, your father's muggleborn."

Ivan shrugged. "I was a raised as a wizard, though. Besides, it'd be interesting to see the wizard viewpoint of Muggles."

"I guess," replied Lee, though not very convincingly.

"You might as well quit now, Ivan." Janet advised him. "I reckon it'd be hard for Lee to understand why anyone would take an extra class if they didn't need to."

The four had been friends ever since they started Hogwarts. Linda and Janet had met while trying on robes for school and Janet, who's father was a wizard and mother was a muggle, was thrilled to find out that Linda knew her way entirely around Diagon Alley and eagerly accepted Linda's invitation to show her around.

Ivan had met Lee while shopping for school books, and Lee, muggleborn and amazed by all of the magical items around him he had only seen in passing when his older brother Thomas had brought them home over holiday, was nearing sensory overload. Thomas had never let Lee play with any of his school things, saying Muggles weren't allowed to touch them. When Lee's Hogwarts letter arrived in the mail on his eleventh birthday, Lee touched every magical thing he could get his hands on.

Ivan and Lee encountered the girls while they were all waiting in line to be sorted, seeking strength in terrified numbers. There wasn't much time for introductions, and the moment they had all gained some sort of a level head, they were called one by one to the three-legged stool and their knees shook all over again.

When the sorting hat had separated all four new friends into the four different houses, they at first feared the worse. But living inside a school with other students proved to be convenient if they just made the effort. And so, they studied together in the library and in the Great Hall after dinner, switched whose house table they would eat at on a certain day (it was hardly even Slytherin, Ivan noted, and couldn't really blame them), and sat next to one another when two houses sometimes had class together.

"Well, at any rate, Ivan, I wouldn't worry about it," Lee continued, slapping Ivan playfully on the back. Ivan didn't look particularly amused by the action. "You're already ostracized enough from your fellow Slytherins—might as well hammer the nail in the coffin, yeah?"

Ivan looked sourly at Lee, replying, "I'm surprised you can even properly use the word 'ostracized.'"

"I notice you're ignoring my sage advice by belittling my intelligence. Must mean I'm right, then."

Ivan grumbled something to himself and then turned his attention back to his Potions essay.


End file.
